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Today J.J. Abrams is known as Hollywood’s go-to sci-fi mastermind. He produced Cloverfield and Super 8, successfully brought Star Trek back from the dead and has been entrusted withStar Wars: Episode VII.

However, what the man’s really good at is writing, directing and producing television pilots. He’s responsible for getting us hooked on Lost and for making us fall in love with Keri Russell onFelicity. Abrams might be the master of the pilot, but which is his masterpiece? We’re ranking all of his pilots—and letting you know where to catch them right now.

5) Undercovers

Undercovers is the one J. J. Abrams pilot that we missed when it first premiered on NBC in 2011, and we aren’t the only ones who didn’t tune in. The show was swiftly canceled midway through its first season. We were planning on finally catching it on streaming to see what all the lack of fuss was about, but there’s a problem: it’s impossible to find.

It’s not on Netflix. It’s not on Hulu. It’s not on Amazon. You can’t even buy it on iTunes or Google Play. It’s as though J.J. Abrams’ one massive commercial failure has been scorched from existence. We can only conjecture that the show’s major issue was that it felt a little too fluffy and fun. Based on this trailer, it had a throwback ‘70s or ‘80s adventure-comedy-romance vibe, which is not bad. It’s just not a tone that jives with modern American audiences.

Undercovers is in last place because we can’t find it. Anywhere. And something tells us that J.J. Abrams doesn’t want us to find it anywhere. Ever.

4) Fringe

Strictly speaking, Fringe isn’t a pure J.J. Abrams pilot. He co-wrote it with frequent collaborators Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, and he didn’t direct it, but the Abrams flair is evident everywhere in the pilot.

It’s a very good pilot. The problems that a contemporary viewer might have with Fringe have less to do with the show itself and more to do with our knowledge of other shows. From the opening scene—a disaster on a plane—to the final moments where a brave, and headstrong young FBI agent discovers that she might be a pawn in a larger conspiracy, it feels like paint-by-numbers J.J. Abrams. The best parts of Lost and Alias are used, but not infused with any new life. Oh, and the the whole “fringe science” angle is fun, if not immediately evocative of Chris Carter’s The X-Files.

Fringe‘s greatest flaw, though, is in its characters. With the exception of John Noble’s immediately idiosyncratic Walter Bishop, none of the characters in the pilot feel like fully rounded human beings yet. Olivia is your typical strong heroine. We’re told how smart Peter is, but not given too many opportunities to see it. We’re also told how much Peter hates Walter, but he seems pretty cool with being his dad’s watchdog. Finally, I’ve spent two minutes trying to describe Agent John Scott’s character, but it’s impossible because he has no character. There’s a big difference between writing a character with secrets and one with no personality.

Fringe is fun, but it’s the absolute diametric opposite of Abrams’ first pilot: Felicity.

Fringe is available to stream on Netflix.

3) Felicity

A long time ago, on a network far, far away (the WB), a young screenwriter named J.J. Abrams made the leap to the small screen. He didn’t write about aliens or spy circles, and there wasn’t any lens flare. It was just a beautifully crafted story about an earnest college freshman who had taken a big risk to follow a boy, and instead, began to discover herself.

The show was Felicity and its pilot remains a television love letter to clean, character-driven storytelling. Sure, there are twists and turns in the pilot, but they all involve the human heart. The show’s lasting charm is in its simplicity and its sincerity—and that’s almost where its flaws are, too.

Felicity, Ben, Julie and Noel are all wonderfully written and complex characters, and they seem to know it. These characters are way too self-aware. I’m not saying they’re too self-aware for college freshmen; they’re too self-aware to be human beings. But hey, the sincere intellectualism and hyper self-awareness is indicative of the time in which Felicity was produced. Dawson’s Creek anyone?

Felicity is available to stream on Hulu Plus.

2) Lost

Yes, Lost is in second place. We said it. Second place.

How? It’s true that the pilot is nearly flawless. It’s a gorgeous work of art that mixes science fiction, action and real human drama. However, it’s also a two-parter, and when watched back-to-back with all of Abrams’ other pilots, the pause between the two parts means the thrust of the narrative briefly loses its steam.

And what of that narrative? From the opening shot, the audience is hooked. Meeting Jack on the ground in the jungle of the island is a great way for us to feel not only connected to the protagonist, but it also gives us an abiding sense of disorientation, an emotion that Lost fans will soon learn to become very familiar with.

The show also does an amazing job of playing with our perceptions of who the characters and what their relationships to one another are. We think we know who all the players are by the end of the first part of the pilot, but part two reveals that you can’t presume anything about anyone. As usual there is more to the pretty, almond-eyed heroine than meets the eye. This time she’s a criminal!

It’s great. It’s near-perfect. It would easily sit in the top spot on this list. Except there’s one problem: J.J. Abrams also wrote, directed and produced the pilot for a spy drama called Alias.

Lost is available to stream on Netflix.

1) Alias

Everything about Alias works: the pacing, the plot, the action, the framing, the music, the acting, the dialogue, and none of the twists or turns in the pilot feel unearned. When Victor Garber’s Jack Bristow saves Sydney in the parking garage, it’s meant to be shocking, but it’s not as obviously baiting as finding a polar bear in a tropical jungle.

Most of all, Alias is top on this list because its the superlative illustration of Abrams’ talents. You’ve got spies, you’ve got surprises, you’ve got a bit of science fiction. There’s romance, there’s loss, there’s humor and there’s heart. A lot of Abrams’ more recent work have lost the soul that Felicity boasted, but not Alias. As Abrams himself has often said, Alias was inspired by the Felicity team’s inside joke that watching Felicity Porter juggle her personal drama with being a spy would be a great show.

From the opening shot of Alias, we feel for Sydney. She’s a whole person and the people in her life are complete characters. We get about as much interaction onscreen between her and Danny Hecht as we do between Olivia Dunham and John Scott, but there’s something more believable in their romance. We know far more about Danny from his earnest and exuberant public proposal than we do from Agent Scott’s reluctantly romantic pillow talk. And sure, that might be part of the point, but in general, all of the characters in the Alias pilot have fully formed relationships with each other that don’t need to be called out by the audience. We’re repeatedly told in Fringe what people’s relationships are to each other, but in Alias, we can tell by the way that Sydney fixes Dixon’s earpiece while they chitchat how close their friendship is. That’s just damn good writing and the Alias pilot is J.J. Abrams’ crowning achievement.

Alias is available to stream on Netflix.